Bowling with Whiskey

                                          -- for Angie.

My basket of bathroom reading
Collects dust in the corner,
Behind the toilet. It is loosely
Filled with magazines, creased,
With frayed edges, and corners
That once budded with use,
That are now wilting.

There is a copy of "ESPN The Magazine," titled
"Outs are In, and so are the Mariners,"
Published a couple years back,
When the team was on the brink
Of contention, just before
They underachieved, and became one
Of baseball's worst of all time.

There are also multiple issues of
"The Sun," containing literary pieces
On foreign policy, America's
Natives, starving African children
And the homeless
In New Orleans' Ninth Ward.
There are pictures, memoirs
And poetry... One in particular
That catches my eye,
"The League," by Eric Anderson.

The poem suggests that the only poetry worth
A damn, and none can, is poetry
That "catches something as large
As life and death." He celebrates
Men who bowl in dark,
Smokey alleys, with whiskey
And Cokes; men who "do not believe
That poetry matters."

But it does, matter, and it is
Worth a damn.
Like life and death, poetry
Makes us pause. And take note.
Poetry is an event worth remembering,
Like bathroom reading, like
Baseball teams on the brink of contention,
And like men who bowl with whiskey.